The composition of Russian forces in Ukraine

Russian budget data suggests that the number of contract soldiers fighting in Ukraine has risen to around 550,000, while fewer than 170,000 mobilized soldiers remain.

Since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the composition of Russian forces in Ukraine has undergone several transformations. At the outset, the war was fought primarily by professional soldiers. When the initial invasion failed and Russia faced an acute manpower shortage, the Kremlin relied on Prigozhin’s Wagner PMC and the partial mobilization of 300,000 men to replenish the ranks quickly, accepting considerable domestic political risks to avoid further military setbacks. At the same time, Moscow began laying the groundwork to create a huge army of mercenaries. In 2023, the Kremlin launched a recruitment campaign designed to bring in several hundred thousand new contract soldiers per year.

The precise composition of Russia’s fighting force between 2022 and 2026 is not known. While official recruitment figures are announced regularly and can be (more or less) confirmed using federal and regional budget data, the total number of active soldiers - both mobilized and contract soldiers - remains unclear. Theoretically, the number of Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine could be calculated by comparing recruitment and permanent losses, but estimates of losses (soldiers killed or wounded too severely to return to service) vary widely, making this difficult in practice.

Budget data to the rescue

Based on federal budget data, it is possible to directly estimate the numbers of both mobilized personnel and contract soldiers fighting in Ukraine. As with the recruitment figures calculated by iStories and on this blog, the estimate is based on specific payments recorded in the federal budget. Mobilized Russian soldiers receive a monthly salary top-up of 158,000 rubles¹ which was introduced by Putin’s Ukaz No. 788 on November 2, 2022, and is paid from the federal budget. At almost 2 million rubles per soldier per year, the total cost for 300,000 mobilized soldiers is considerable (hundreds of billions of rubles each year).

Contract soldiers also receive a monthly top-up. It was introduced by Putin’s Ukaz No. 230 on March 31, 2023, when Russia’s large-scale recruitment campaign began. At 15,000 rubles per month, it is much more modest than the payment received by mobilized soldiers. It is paid only as long as the soldier is actively taking part in the war, although payments continue during brief absences, such as recovery from a minor injury.

In general, Russian soldiers can fall into only one of these categories, meaning that there should be no overlap between recipients of the 158,000-ruble top-up for mobilized personnel and the 15,000-ruble top-up for contract soldiers. The two payments are made from separate budget lines. Dividing the amounts spent from the federal budget on these salary top-ups by 158,000 and 15,000 rubles, respectively, should indicate the number of Russian troops in Ukraine.

Source: Own calculations based on data from Russia’s Finance Ministry

The payouts for mobilized soldiers indicate nearly 300,000 recipients in early 2023. Over the following years, the number of recipients declined. In 2024, an average of 246,303 soldiers received this payout; in 2025, the number dropped further to 168,594. This does not mean that all of the remaining mobilized soldiers are dead or severely injured. Mobilized soldiers can sign a contract and become “kontraktniki,” thereby moving from one category to the other (more on this below).

While the number of mobilized soldiers declined, the number of contract soldiers increased significantly. According to Russian budget data, there were an average of 230,407 recipients in 2023 (April–December), 420,811 in 2024, and 554,883 in 2025. The total number of Russian troops in Ukraine - mobilized personnel and contract soldiers - rose from 523,548 in 2023 to 667,114 in 2024 and 723,477 in 2025. Because the top-up is also paid to soldiers who are temporarily off duty, the actual number of deployed troops among the recipients is probably somewhat lower. At the same time, however, there may also be a smaller number of Russian soldiers in Ukraine who receive neither salary top-up (official Russian statements regarding volunteers remain somewhat ambiguous).

Converting mobilized soldiers into contract soldiers

The Russian MoD apparently wants as many mobilized soldiers as possible to sign contracts. Vyorstka reported in 2024 that mobilized soldiers were being pressured to sign contracts and this pressure increased in 2025. iStories calculated, based on regional spending data, that at least a few percent of new recruits in 2024 had previously been mobilized soldiers.

Based on the same data, this group was several times larger in 2025. For example, Irkutsk Oblast spent 1 billion rubles on sign-on bonuses for “converts” and 5 billion on bonuses for other recruits in 2025, indicating that mobilized men accounted for 10–20 percent of new contract soldiers from the region. In 2026, the same budget lines show much smaller payouts again.

The fact that mobilized soldiers (most likely tens of thousands) are signing contracts has several implications. First, it means that the true pace of recruitment, understood as new men joining the Russian armed forces, is somewhat lower than budget data and official statements suggest. Second, it is important to consider when estimating Russian losses.

Russian permanent losses revisited

By combining recruitment data for 2023-2026 (personnel “inflows”) with data on the “stock” of contract soldiers, it is possible to estimate the rate of permanent “outflows” among Russia’s contract personnel. The same calculation cannot be performed for mobilized soldiers (at least not using federal budget data): It is impossible to determine how many mobilized soldiers subsequently signed contracts and became “kontraktniki”, and how many should instead be counted as permanent losses.

In this analysis, a “permanent loss” is defined operationally as a soldier who no longer receives the monthly salary top-up. In principle, soldiers may disappear from the payment data for several reasons, including desertion, imprisonment, transfer to another personnel category, troop rotation out of Ukraine, or other administrative changes. However, most of these permanent outflows are likely to consist of soldiers who were killed or suffered injuries severe enough to remove them permanently from service.

Not all data points in Russian federal spending on salary top-ups are equally conclusive, so I use only the most reliable data (full-year spending) for this calculation. Based on the figures presented above, the average number of contract soldiers rose by 190,404 between 2023 and 2024 and by 134,072 between 2024 and 2025. I assume that the annual data on salary top-ups reflect the situation at mid-year. The “inflow” of contract soldiers is measured using federal budget spending on sign-on bonuses.

Between mid-2023 and mid-2024, there were 372,715 bonuses paid for new contract soldiers (maximum scenario), but the total number of contract soldiers only increased by 190,404. This implies permanent losses of 182,311 contract soldiers, or around 15,000 per month. In the following year, the calculation indicates even higher losses: between mid-2024 and mid-2025, 385,160 sign-on bonuses were paid, but the total number of contract soldiers increased by only 134,072. This implies permanent losses of 251,088 during that period, or around 21,000 per month.

Source: Own calculations based on data from Russia’s Finance Ministry.

It is important to note that this is not the total rate of permanent losses, but only the rate among contract soldiers. When these figures are compared with the total number of “kontraktniki” fighting in Ukraine, the result is striking.

First, a reminder that there are many IFs here and considerable uncertainty: IF the recruitment figures are correct, IF my estimates of the number of active troops are correct (e.g., all active troops continue to receive the top-up), and IF there are no other significant ways for contract soldiers to leave the battlefield…

If the answer is “yes” each time, then the attrition rate is 43.3% between 2023 and 2024 and 45.3% between 2024 and 2025. In other words, it would mean that Russia loses almost half of its active troops in Ukraine each year.

Comparison with official statements

Putin periodically mentions the size of Russian forces in Ukraine. In late 2023, he claimed that there were 617,000 men “in the battle zone” in Ukraine, among them 244,000 mobilized soldiers. In early 2024, he again mentioned “over 600,000” men. In June 2024, he put the number of troops in Ukraine at “almost 700,000”. In September 2025 he mentioned “over 700,000 men at the frontlines”. He repeated the same in June 2026. If you check these data points in the first chart above, the differences between official statements and budget data are relatively small.

Ukrainian estimates of Russian troop strength were somewhat lower than Russia’s official figures during the first three years of the full-scale invasion. Since 2025, however, the two have largely converged at around 700,000. The latest estimate came in June 2026 from Ukraine’s former Commender-in-Chief Syrskyi, who put the number of Russian troops in Ukraine at 721,300.

In principle, Russian permanent losses could be calculated based solely on official Russian statements since 2023. While Putin’s figures have increased only slightly over the years, Medvedev announces roughly 400,000 new contract soldiers annually. Of course, these statements cannot be taken at face value. But it is still puzzling that Russian propaganda makes two claims (a largely constant troop strength and enormous recruitment) that, taken together, imply something catastrophic for Russia (huge losses).

Data issues and Q1 2026

Russian budget spending fluctuates a lot from quarter to quarter, making it difficult to assess underlying changes within a given year. Full-year data is usually the most comprehensive and stable. This is why I largely excluded data from Q1-Q3 from my calculations. In the chart above, I used them only on a cumulative basis: e.g. I interpreted spending after three quarters as indicative of the situation between January and September, but did not interpret the incremental change from Q2 to Q3 as a data point for Q3 alone.

The reliability of Q1 data is particularly low. Spending is usually lower than the underlying trend would suggest, and the budget “catches up” through above-average spending later in the year.

This also means that the data from Q1 2026 has to be interpreted carefully. The numbers can be adjusted based on Q1 data from previous years. For salary top-ups for mobilized soldiers, Q1 spending was 30% below the underlying trend in 2023–2025; for contract soldiers, it was 20% below the trend.

If you adjust the data for Q1 2026 upwards accordingly, the result suggest a further decline in the number of mobilized soldiers in active service to 120,000. The result for contract soldiers would actually indicate a decline of the total to around 525,000 active contract soldiers in early 2026 - 30,000 fewer than in mid-2025. Again, this data is NOT very reliable, and we will have to wait for future budget reports to assess the situation properly, but I decided to include it for the sake of completeness.

1. In some cases, it is 172,000 rubles (kursanty) or 164,600 rubles (National Guard), but since the difference is small and these groups are tiny (low single-digit percentage), so that these differences can be ignored.